PCB considers disrepute charge against Hair

Shaharyar Khan, the Pakistan Cricket Board chairman, has said that his board has not ruled out calling on the ICC to investigate Darrell Hair with a view to seeing if he should be charged with bringing the game into disrepute.

"What we have done is to already ask the ICC [before the hearing] to investigate Mr Hair's conduct in the match for bringing the game into disrepute," he told the media in a press conference at The Oval. "All this we are seeing - the expense, lawyers, coming all the way from Pakistan - who is responsible?

"It is for the ICC to say whether or not this is to be investigated and what the outcome will be. We asked the ICC before the hearing and they replied to us saying they would not do it now, implying that would have to wait for hearing, so our request is already well. So for me to say we would not press further is not correct."

Khan made quite clear his board's feelings about Hair, telling the media at The Oval that they did not want him appointed to officiate in matches involving them, but he repeatedly refused to explain the basis for those objections.

"I can tell you that we have already informed the ICC before this hearing that we wouldn't like to have Darrell Hair umpire out matches," said Khan. "Not only for the Champions Trophy but also until his contract runs out.

"Let me say, we have never raised any objection to any elite or international umpire. We have a problem [with Hair], I'm not saying we will have to live with it forever, but we've asked the ICC to please be sensitive with their appointments All I can say is that we objected to him, not just recently, but over a long period of time. "

Khan added that it was only Pakistan matches he didn't believe Hair should stand, in and drew the comparison with Sri Lanka following the Muttiah Muralitharan affair in 1995. "Our demand was that he should not umpire our matches. We can't speak for other countries. When Sri Lanka had a problem with Hair in 1995 he wasn't posted to Sri Lanka for eight years. The ICC maintains, as it did then, that no country has the power to say umpire X will stand and umpire Y won't. This is not for us to say where umpires stand, and we respect that.

"But I think when you have a consistent problem with an umpire the ICC must look at it. I think the ICC was right with Hair and Sri Lanka, but with us when we conveyed this view through umpires reports we then had Hair four times in succession. We feel very aggrieved at that.

"Here we are. We have a problem with an umpire from his attitudes - not technically - but why post him. In four consecutive series in one year Mr Hair was standing in our matches. It was a time bomb waiting to go off."